


Audiophilia

by magic_and_hijinx



Category: jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Insomnia, M/M, PAX Prime, jack is a lowkey fanboy, mark is a concerned mother, maybe bordering on voice kink but not really?, post-convention fic, voice appreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 15:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5169167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magic_and_hijinx/pseuds/magic_and_hijinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day got just a little bit harder for Jack when Mark realised he could amplify his voice by cupping his hand around the mic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Audiophilia

The day got just a little bit harder for Jack when Mark realised he could amplify his voice by cupping his hand around the mic.  
Simple, pronounced words clipped on to his ears and sent a soft, silky web of tingles down the back of his head. He let out a deep breath, feeling his chest and stomach fill with a soothing coolness, the like of which you’d only usually get from an ice lolly on a blaring summer’s day. His cheeks filled with warmth and he found himself grinning like an idiot, looking over at Mark with soft, sparkling eyes.  
“Good _god_ …”  
He heard his utter bewilderment in the tone drop of the last word. Everything came back in flashes. The long nights he’d spent on Skype to Mark, hiding his shit-eating grin with his fist whilst Mark told him a story in that half-asleep voice he couldn’t get enough of; keeping his composure on camera when Mark went into voice actor mode for some of the game characters; and, above everything else, sitting alone in his log cabin at 12:45am before a big test at college hoping the loveable goof with the golden voice would somehow manage to get him to sleep again. He always did.  
“I’m so hot right now.” It wasn’t like he was lying; his ‘subtle’ attempts to readjust his pants in his jeans by shifting around the chair was testament to that. But the rampant laughter spreading across the room was good a sign as any that he was off the hook- for now.

 

****

 

Mark brushed his fingers over the keyboard to get to his mousepad. He clicked ‘Play Next’ on the DVD window that had been playing Who’s Line Is It Anyways? for the past two hours. Flicking his mouse to the bottom of his screen, he accidentally brought up the task bar. The clock in the corner of his screen, showing the time hours into the early morning, seemed to be silently judging him. He scrunched up his face, blinking the crust out of his eyes. Maybe I need to stop.  
He sighed and closed off the video window. His browser with Tumblr loaded on it emerged from underneath it, tempting him. He let out a quiet groan and committed to being sucked into the Tumblr sphere for an hour or two.  
He scrolled down for a few moments and already, his dash was overtaken by Jack answering asks. Most of them were about PAX Prime- stable, FAQ-type questions that probably should have been asked to a member of staff.

 

“What time does People Doing Panels start and what hall is it in?” asked one.  
“it’s right by the sign that says ‘WATCHES FOR SALE’, you can’t miss it” came his reply.

  
Mark couldn’t help but smile. He brought his hand to his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair absentmindedly. Jack’s jokes tended to get a little bit dad-worthy around about this time of night, but that piece of pure corn took even him by surprise. Looks like he could use a bit of company.  
He waited until his laptop had shut down properly and closed it over. When their contact at PAX Prime had asked what their preference for hotels was, Jack managed to persuade him into staying at the same hotel as him. Mark had agreed in a heartbeat; it made dinner arrangements so much easier since they didn’t have to worry about a meetup point. When two rooms directly across the hall from each other opened up in their hotel of choice, they should have realised the flaw in the plan. If they did, they elected to ignore it.  
“Watches for sale? _Really_?” Mark asked the moment Jack opened the door to him.  
“ _Mark_?” Jack asked, rubbing his eyes under the assault of the hallway lights. “What’re you doing up? It’s, like, 4am.”  
“You know, I could probably say the exact thing to you, but I’m not going to do that because I’m just too nice.” He gave Jack a cheesy grin and stepped into the room. As he walked across the room, the only source of light was the beacon of moonlight streaming from the window behind Jack’s bed.  
Jack watched Mark as he went, gently rolling his eyes with a betraying grin. He pulled the door shut and reached for the light switch to illuminate the otherwise pitch black room. “Dude, it’s like dinner time in Ireland and- ah, fuck.” He threw his arms over his eyes before the sudden flood of light could blind him.  
“Why were you sitting in the dark, anyways?”  
“Eh, it got dark while I was sitting there. I couldn’t really be arsed to get up.” He shrugged, striding over to Mark and taking a seat on the edge of his bed.  
“So are you gonna give me another lecture about staying up? I’m ready for round two.” Jack bit back a smile, last week’s 3am (for Jack) rant about how he ‘needed to take better care of himself’ and ‘couldn’t keep skipping out on sleep’ fresh in his memory.  
Mark let out a deep breath. “Nah. I’ll give you a rest for tonight.” He hopped up onto Jack’s bed, propping himself up with his hands next to Jack.  
“Oh my god, have I finally broken you?” Jack asked, bringing his fist up to his open mouth in faux terror.  
Mark gave Jack a sloppy smile as a yawn wrecked through his body. “Nah, I’m just extra tired tonight.”  
On the air of the yawn, Mark’s voice dropped into a deep, resonant drawl that bounced around in Jack’s head and filled it with soft cotton. He leaned forward, resting his head on his fists, and fought against the warmth spreading across his cheeks. They fell silent.  
“…What?” Mark asked after a few seconds. Jack felt his lazy stare piercing into the side of his head.  
“What?” Jack asked, very nearly a snap. He didn’t dare to look at Mark.  
“You went all quiet and now…wait, Jack, are you blushing?” His back shot upright as he turned his body towards Jack.  
Despite his best efforts to fight it, Mark picking up on it combined with the way his name rolled off Mark’s tongue when he used that voice got on top of him. He could physically feel his cheeks reddening further as he broke out into a fit of giggles.  
“What? What did I do? What’s so funny?”  
The only response Jack could give was a renewed bout of laughter.  
“Okay, so I either somehow managed to block signals from the mothership or you’re already going loopy from lack of sleep.”  
“Bit of both,” Jack managed between breaths.  
“See what I’m talking about? Next thing we know, you’re gonna be talking to the ceiling tiles. Now, I don’t want to have to put on the dad pants but…”  
Jack pushed his face into his hands as if his palms could stomp out his smile. “Stop talkin’ like that.”  
“Stop talking like what?”  
“Like that. You know what I’m fuckin’ talking about.”  
A few moments of silence passed where Mark’s face fell slack, a glimmer of contemplation in his eye. Then slowly, a grin spread across his face from cheek to cheek.  
“ _Jack_ , you’re not blushing because of my _voice_ , are you?” Jack's name got the sing-song treatment.  
He squished his cheeks into his hands again. A short, contained giggle escaped through his fingers.  
Mark folded his arms across his chest. Jack could’ve sensed his shit-eating grin from a mile away.  
After a few moments of staring absently at the closet across from the bed, he lifted his head from his hands; beetroot cheeks and all. “Come on, it’s not like that’s a new thing.”  
Mark looked at Jack like he was watching a fireworks show, eyes sparkling and engrossed. “I knew you liked my voice. I didn’t know it’d make you blush like a little girl in a fuckin’ shoujo anime.”  
Jack let his head fall back onto his hands again. “Well, it does. Ain’t gettin’ nowhere bein’ an ass about it, are ye?”  
Mark sat up straight again, inching his legs away from Jack but still keeping his gaze firmly locked on Jack’s side profile. “Oh, come on, I didn’t mean it like it was a _bad thing_. I…actually think it’s kind of cute.”  
“Cute?” Jack finally looked up at Mark.  
“Yeah, like…in a manly way of course.”  
Jack laughed in a subdued manner and faced forward again. “Since the shit’s coming out the wheelbarrow, I should probably tell you that uh…” He giggled. “When, uh- when I was in college and like, there was something big coming up like a test or whatever and uh, I couldn’t like, get to sleep…I’d kind of just put on your videos to help me get to sleep.”  
Mark’s smile brightened even more (which was possible, apparently). “That’s so cool. Did it work?”  
“Yeah.” He lifted his head from his hands a final time, this time doing nothing to contain his grin. “Every time.”  
“You know, I find it really ironic that even back then I was nagging you to get to sleep.”  
“Yeah, you’ve had the dad pants on _far longer_ than you even know.”  
“And now you don’t have college so you just don’t sleep. I just can’t comprehend how you’re not tired by now.”  
“I told ye, it’s like 5pm in Ireland right now. I’m not _that_ nocturnal.”  
“Oh, bullshit. I know you barely got any sleep on the plane. I’m still wading through last night’s Tumblr ask flood.”  
Jack scratched his chin, looking to the side of Mark. “…Okay, you got me there. But honestly, I’m just not tired.”  
“Are you sure about that? Because I just keep thinking it must be really weird for you, you know? You’re not used to travel, you’re not used to waking up in a strange place. Are you sure you don’t just feel out of place?” Mark’s voice had dropped down to little more than a soothing whisper now, just quiet enough for Jack and Jack alone to hear.  
“Well…” Jack shrugged, his eyes trailing down to the bed sheets. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He knew it was a cop-out, but Mark’s voice rattling around in his head meant his mind was far too fuzzy to construct a deep, meaningful answer. In his peripheral vision, he noticed Mark looking him up and down as if he were trying to work out a puzzle. His dark chocolate eyes were almost inescapable now; Mark’s face took up almost the entirety of his field of view.  
“I mean, you’re just so far from home and today was a lot to take in. I don’t blame you if you’re still busy processing it, but I don’t think you’ll be done with that until sometime next week at the earliest.”  
“Yeah.” He slowly looked up at Mark. His slow, gentle breaths caressed Jack’s nose. “There were just so many people and…I don’t know. So many stories.”  
Mark closed the slither of space left between them, reaching up to run his fingers through Jack’s hair.  
“I know. I know, after PAX East last year I drove myself half mad just running over everything in my head. It’s not easy- especially when your mind’s already reaching top speeds as it is. But look- just for now, forget PAX and forget all of the faces you saw and the people you met. You can deal with them later; you can do what I do and put little pieces of them into everything you do.”  
Jack strained to keep his gaze fixed on Mark as his eyelids started to weigh him down. The friction of Mark’s fingers tangled in his hair sent pleasant, soothing tingles from the top of his head to the small of his back.  
“Right now, you just need to trust me that everything’s okay even though your head’s probably been spinning ever since we left the convention. And, like, obviously, it’s been a long time since you were a college student with insomnia, but if I can be your anchor back to home then I’ll gladly take it.”  
Jack’s faint smile fell lopsided as his eyes finally came to a close. His head slowly drifted down until it was comfortably nestled in Mark’s chest. Mark looked over him for a moment, feeling his chest well up. Jack rested so delicately on his chest, as if one sudden movement would shatter him. Already, he looked so peaceful; every muscle in his face was slackened and his chest started to rise and fall in a strangely soothing rhythm. “There you go.”  
He waited a good few minutes until Jack’s eyes were fluttering and a gentle, barely audible purr came from him every time he exhaled. Then he wrapped one arm around his back and the other along the underside of his knees. Jack was about as heavy as he looked, his bony body falling into a perfect arch in Mark’s arms. He bent over the edge of the bed, carefully setting Jack down on the bed with his head against the pillow. Tiptoeing over to the other side of the bed, he pulled the corner of the duvet down and worked his way underneath Jack’s legs. Somehow, he managed to pull the duvet out and over Jack’s still-clothed body without eliciting so much as a stir. As soon as Jack’s entire body was covered, Mark stood back to admire his handiwork. Jack seemed to have subconsciously snuggled into the bed, turning onto his side with one hand under the pillow and the other in the covers.  
Mark let out a deep but inaudible sigh, making his way around the bed to where Jack was sleeping once more. He bent down and softly kissed Jack on the forehead.  
“You get some rest before your flight, okay?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and feel free to drop me a Tumblr prompt [here](http://magic-and-hijinks.tumblr.com/ask)!


End file.
